A Fix to A Problem
by Can'tStopImagining
Summary: Betty and Kate find something unexpected outside of the rooming house. McWithDrew friendship. Heavy on the McAndrew part. Mentions of McBond and Gladys/James.


A/N:

this didn't actually turn out how I intended it to, but I had the idea and then just struggled to write it how I wanted. I'm pretty happy with it, but I'm not sure, factually, that it's 100% there. ah well. I'm still struggling a bit with writing Kate, so any constructive criticism on that angle, as well, would be appreciated.

* * *

At first, Betty thinks it's just her imagination. She's lying on her bed in a room that's filled with cigarette smoke, her door slightly ajar, the faint hum of a blues record being played in the common room just audible, along with chatter and laughter that she's trying to block out. It's not that she's being a grump. She's perfectly capable of going out there, putting on a bright and cheery smile, dancing around with all the other girls, but Teresa left a week and a half ago, and she feels like being alone. She's not unhappy, as such. Betty knows she should feel like her insides are being torn out, but she doesn't. She does miss her, though. She misses having someone who understands her, and who still wants to be with her. She misses the way Teresa smells, the feel of her skin, the sound of her laugh; but she doesn't miss it so much that it aches inside like it did when Kate was gone. It's not constant. She goes hours without thinking about it, and she's decided that's okay. She and Teresa were never meant to be together for the long run, she thinks.

She hears it again, and this time she sits up, alarmed. It's a soft sound, high pitched, like someone's crying, and for a second her stomach churns. She's reminded of Kate's cries in the middle of the night when she first moved here. Betty remembers lying awake all night, the noises making her blood curdle, having to dig her finger nails into her bed sheets to stop herself from going across the hall towards the sound. It would be inappropriate, she'd kept telling herself.

Eventually, Kate started asking her – begging her, even – to stay with her.

It feels so long ago. So much has happened, and she doesn't even think she's the same person she was then, knows Kate isn't. But the noise brings it all back to her in a flash. Before she knows what she's doing, she's sliding off the bed, stubbing out her cigarette, and dashing across the hall to Kate's room. The music is louder, and she can hear the distinct laugh of Moira from two rooms down, and Betty wonders if she imagined the noise after all, if maybe it was an excuse to come over here. She shakes the thought away and raises her hand to knock, just as the door swings open, revealing a wide-eyed Kate who almost screams in surprise.

"Betty! What is it?" she says breathlessly, her hand against her chest.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you jump. I just... I heard a noise and..."

Kate softens, letting her hand drop to her side, "what sort of a noise?"

Suddenly, Betty feels like an idiot, her cheeks too hot. She shrugs her shoulders, hoping for nonchalant, but stopping instead at awkward. She can hardly tell her she thought she heard her crying. That sounds ridiculous. Besides, Kate had made it quite clear that it isn't her place to worry about her. Instead, Betty delves her hands into her pockets and tries to think up a feasible explanation. Before she can think of one, the record the girls are listening to ends and in the silence, she hears the noise again. This time, it's louder, and she realises that it's coming from outside.

"Did you hear that?"

Kate yawns, "I need to use the bathroom, Betty. Whatever this is... can't it wait?"

Distracted, Betty shakes her head. She's already moving towards the door that leads outside, not really paying attention to Kate anymore, until she realises she's following. It's dark out. The small driveway leading up to the rooming house is empty, but the sound is louder now, accompanied by a soft scratching. Betty frowns, realising it's coming from the underbrush. Just as they near it, Kate grabs her hand.

"I don't think you should go down there... you don't know what's there."

Betty glances over her shoulder at her and rolls her eyes, "it's probably nothin'. A rabbit or a fox cub or something."

No matter how reluctant Kate is, once Betty has an idea in her head, there's no talking her out of it. All she can do is stand back and make sure she's out of the way of whatever it is. As Betty kneels down beside the hedge, she starts to talk, softly, telling Kate a story. When she was eight or nine, she says, one of their lambs had run off and got itself trapped in a fence. Being the only person small enough to fit through the gap, Betty's dad had sent her down to rescue it. It's always strange when Betty starts speaking about her childhood because it's so distant, so different to how Kate grew up, and how she imagined other children. She loves to hear about it though, because she can't quite imagine Betty as a young girl, climbing trees and rescuing lambs.

"It's okay buddy," Betty says softly, in a voice Kate is sure she has never heard her use before. She turns, and there's an animal in her arms, a pointy little snout sticking out, still whimpering and shivering, "pass me your robe?"

"My robe?" Kate repeats.

"Yeah, I need to wrap him in somethin'. He's freezing."

"But I-" she stares at the dog, her eyes wide, frightened, and Betty looks at her and frowns.

Kate Andrews is scared of dogs.

Kate Andrews who was beaten by her preacher father for as long as she could remember, who has the scars to prove it. Kate Andrews who ran away from home, changed identity, went to a foreign city, started over again with no one and nothing. Kate Andrews who builds bombs for a living.

Kate, the very definition of all things soft and sweet and lovely, is terrified of a bundle of fur no bigger than her torso, and that is pretty damn hilarious. The absurdity makes Betty want to laugh, but she doesn't, instead holding her hand out for the robe. Despite obviously being reluctant, Kate slips it off and hands it to her, immediately wrapping her arms around her body.

Even once it's wrapped in the robe, the small dog is shivering and whining. Betty cradles it to her like a baby, rubbing its nose and cooing to it. Even though Kate is still afraid, still mildly annoyed, she can't help but be surprised by the scene unfolding in front of her, can't help but let her heart be warmed by it. Sure, she's always known Betty has a softer side, unlike many of the other girls at the factory. If anything, Kate has been on the receiving end of that warmth more than anybody else. But it still makes her heart heavy, watching her friend tenderly stroke the small animal, talking gently to it as if it can somehow understand her words.

"He's so cold and wet, looks like he's been out here a couple days at least. We'll have to take him inside, warm him up, get him something to eat."

Kate shakes her head, her eyes wide, "Betty, we can't take it in there. It would never be allowed. And besides, we can't afford to spare any food. Rationing is tight as it is."

"I'm not sayin' we keep him, but look at the poor thing. He's trembling. I'm sure one night isn't gonna harm anyone," she pleads, looking up momentarily from the dog's face, framed by matted fur and dirt.

Even if she wants to, Kate can't say no to the rare doe eyed expression on Betty's face, so she reluctantly nods, crossing her arms tighter around herself. She turns to walk back inside, and Betty follows, continuing to murmur at the dog. Kate frowns, wondering if this could possibly be a dream, because the very thought of Betty rescuing an abandoned puppy and cooing over it like a mother with her baby is baffling, but once she's inside and greeted again by the usual noises of the rooming house, she's sure she's awake.

They go straight to her room because it's closest and Betty puts the dog down on the bed, much to Kate's dismay. Now, in the light, she gets a proper look at him. He isn't a snout and big pointy teeth and glowing brown eyes, but a mess of curly tan fur and floppy ears, and his tail wags when Betty cuddles him. He's too skinny and his fur needs a brush and he's dirty and wet all over, but, once Kate gets past the fact he's a _dog_, she realises he's actually pretty sweet looking.

"We can't keep him," she says, her voice barely above a whisper, paranoid that one of the other girls might hear.

"I know. But we can give him a bath, a warm house to sleep in for the night and then..."

Kate cocks her head to one side, still keeping a safe distance away, "then what? We don't know who he belongs to."

For a moment, Betty is quiet. She continues to stroke the dog's head, gazing down at him, and he's stopped whining now, twisting to lick her hand. Kate watches her in silence. She suddenly wishes she could see how Betty is with her brothers, how she interacts with her parents. She's never seen her like this before and it makes her realise that there's this whole other Betty that she's never known, and that makes her sad. Sad, not only because she's never seen it before, but because none of the girls at the factory have either. No one sees it. Betty's always so guarded that it takes the arrival of man's best friend for her to open up fully. _You gave her enough reason to feel that way_, Kate thinks, before pushing the thought aside.

"I have some chicken leftover from dinner. I was going to make it into a soup tomorrow but I could fetch it for him?" she asks, eventually.

Lifting her head, Betty nods, a small smile on her lips, "thank you."

Kate disappears to the kitchen, and she has to push past a huddle of the other girls from their floor who are having a cigarette, and she's sure she's shaking as she takes the slither of chicken out of the fridge. She went on the run from her father, has been hiding his death for months, not to mention lying to Ivan, but sneaking a dog into her room is proving to be the most difficult thing for her to do for some reason. Escaping the kitchen without raising any suspicion, she hotfoots back to her room, closing the door quickly behind herself.

"It's not much but it's better than nothing," she says as she places the food on the bed. The dog looks at it, but doesn't go near to it, or start eating it, until Betty encourages him.

"We can't keep him," Betty says again, and Kate realises she's only saying it to convince herself. She sighs, running a hand through her hair as the dog happily eats up the chicken.

After a moment, Kate speaks up, touching Betty's arm gently, "I have an idea."

* * *

It's been almost a month since James died.

If Gladys hated living at home before, she detests it now. Now that she's had a taste of independence – her hotel room, the luxury of James' car taking her wherever, whenever – to have it taken away again is torturous. And besides that, her parents are driving her crazy. _Your mother is unwell _her father tells her every time Adele snaps at her or hurries out of a room in tears, and Gladys knows exactly what kind of 'unwell' he means. She's watched her pour herself a large glass of brandy, or a whisky. Seen her finish a bottle in two nights flat, even. It's just the same as when Lawrence died, and that drives her nuts. James was hers. He was her fiancé, and _she _knew him, not her parents, certainly not her mother. The only time they so much as conversed, it was about business, or the wedding. And if they hadn't put so much pressure on him to be the heir they'd lost when Lawrence died, maybe he wouldn't have tried so hard, maybe he'd still be here. Gladys knows it's unfair to blame them, just as it isn't right that his parents are blaming her, but she has to blame _someone._

And, one thing her father is right about, if she blames herself, she'll never get past it. She'll turn into her mother. She'll spiral more out of control than she already is, and that won't be any good to anyone.

As it is, she is concentrating on maintaining a routine. She's trying to get past the fact that at the age of twenty-four, she's a widow. She's trying to hold her head up high and fight her corner just as she had before James died, before he went to war.

But, having your parents engage in a screaming match every morning as you're trying to get ready to go to work – and now, today, on her day off – is making it very difficult. She doesn't even know the topic of debate this morning, nor does she need to. All she knows is her mother is crying _again, _her father hasn't stopped shouting for the past twenty minutes, and she's hiding on the stairs yet again, trying to drown it out, feeling just the same as she did when she was six years old, hiding from them as they argued. _What are we going to do with her? _Her father would yell, and her mother would weep, and it didn't matter how hard she tried to block it out. It was always about her, then, too.

"Miss Witham?"

Gladys looks up from her lap to the housemaid who is standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking haggard and afraid.

"Yes, what is it?"

"There are two women at the front door. Friends of yours. Should I let them through?"

She nods, rubbing a hand over her neck. She's exhausted and doesn't think she can face her friends today, whoever it is, but she's spent weeks avoiding them outside work, and where has that got her. Sighing, she stands from the stairs and adjusts her dress, smooths down her hair, fixes a fake smile to her face. She tries to block out the sound of her parents arguing in the next room.

When Kate walks in, her blue eyes wide, taking in her surroundings as if she's never been to the house before (_has she ? _Gladys wonders for a second), the smile that tugs at Gladys' lips is genuine, to her surprise. She moves to embrace her, and steps back in time to see Betty walk in. Before she can reach across to hug her too, she realises Betty is carrying something wrapped in a yellow towel.

"Betts?" she questions, her hand still resting on Kate's arm.

"Princess... we uh... we..." before she can offer an explanation, a tiny brown nose sticks out from the towel, followed by a short, sharp bark that makes Gladys jump.

"We found him in the bushes at the rooming house. Betty rescued him," Kate explains, fidgeting nervously.

Gladys lets go of her arm and moves closer to Betty, pushing the yellow cloth back to reveal a small, golden brown head of fur, with big brown eyes, and a lolling tongue. The dog barks again, its ears twitching. Calmly, Gladys strokes the space between its eyes, gazing up at Betty.

"We figured we can't keep him... and since James died, you've been so lonely..."

She thinks she should be angry, or at least irritated that her friends have come to this conclusion. She should be explaining to them that a dog is never going to make up for her fiancé's death, never going to replace him, or make her feel whole again, but she doesn't. She's got that feeling in the back of her throat like she's going to start to cry, and her heart is heavy in her chest, and she's not wanted a dog since she was nine years old and nagging and nagging her parents to buy her a puppy, but suddenly this is everything she needs. A scruffy little dog with a goofy expression and ears too big for its head might actually be the thing that saves her, she realises.

"If you don't wanna take him, we'd understand. Kate just thought-"

Gladys shakes her head, "he looks like he's absolutely starving. I'll get the kitchen to fix him some food," she says, evenly.

She scoops him out of Betty's arms, and he immediately whines until she holds him close so he can sniff her face. In a moment, it's as if he's decided that _yep, this is okay_ and calms down, licking her face. She wrinkles her nose, laughing, and the sound feels foreign. It's been so long since she laughed about everything that maybe she'd forgotten how to. Gladys looks down at the dog and she smiles.

"Come on then, Jimmy, let's get you something to eat."


End file.
